Can Joni Ernst break Iowa’s Senate habit?

A new Des Moines Register poll asked voters, “Do you think it has been to Iowa’s advantage or disadvantage to have a U.S. senator from each political party?” Fifty-three percent of respondents said it is an advantage, while just 25 percent said it is not.

Now, Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst is asking Iowans to change their habit of the last few decades and send her to the Senate alongside Grassley. Getting elected might be easier for Ernst were she running for Grassley’s seat — a Republican to replace a Republican — but it was Harkin who retired first. On the other hand, Ernst might break through the Iowa balancing act simply because her Democratic opponent, Bruce Braley, seems ill-equipped to win the kind of loyalty that voters have shown Harkin over the years.

During a campaign stop Sunday, I asked Ernst what it is about Iowa that creates what can appear to outsiders as a schizophrenic Senate delegation. “I can tell you one thing: I think Tom Harkin is a very gracious man,” Ernst told me. “And I think that comes across to Iowa voters, where maybe they don’t agree with the way he votes in Washington, DC, but he’s out there expressing concern for them.

“So I think that’s the difference, that we don’t see that graciousness transmitted from Harkin to Bruce Braley, who has made such a number of comments that really paint him to be an elitist and someone who’s out of touch with everyday Iowans.”

It was a smart gesture from Ernst. First, praise Harkin, who was last elected with 62 percent of the vote in the big Democratic year of 2008. Then, turn that praise of Harkin to reflect unfavorably on Braley, who has none of Harkin’s stature. As for some specifically Iowan sense of a balanced Senate delegation, Ernst disagreed. “Not necessarily,” she said. “I think when you’re staying in touch with Iowans, Iowans tend to re-elect that.”

Ernst had a good Sunday. Campaigning in the crucial eastern part of Iowa, she drew solid crowds in the Mississippi River towns of Clinton and Dubuque — the 22nd and 23rd counties in her “#IowaKnowsBest” drive to visit all the state’s 99 counties. Ernst drew about 100 people to a meet-and-greet in Clinton, which was an especially good number for an event held at the church hour Sunday morning. That’s not the usual time for a political gathering, but with three weeks left before the election, Ernst will be on a demanding schedule to hit all those counties.

In Dubuque, people were standing outside the door of the Naughty Dog coffee shop as Ernst addressed a packed house inside. And then Ernst’s big RV — “Mother. Soldier. Independent leader” written on the side — made the three-hour drive to West Des Moines for an evening rally at the headquarters of the Iowa Farm Bureau with Mitt Romney and Gov. Terry Branstad. The crowd was good, probably 150, although the room wasn’t full on a chilly, misty night.

Braley got some good news on Saturday, when the Des Moines Register poll showed him just one point behind Ernst, 46 percent to 47 percent. Just a few weeks ago, the Register had Braley down by six. The new survey came out just a few hours before Braley and Ernst met in debate at St. Ambrose University in Davenport.

It was the candidates’ second debate. At the first, on September 28, Ernst was widely thought to have won handily. But Braley, a longtime trial lawyer who has served four terms in the House, did better at St. Ambrose, while Ernst turned in a lackluster performance. Her biggest score of the night was criticizing Braley for his remarks last January knocking Grassley as a simple farmer who wouldn’t be up to chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The good news for Ernst this time was that the St. Ambrose debate was at 7 p.m. on a Saturday night with a baseball playoff game also going on. It’s an exaggeration to say no one was watching, but it’s probably fair to say Ernst picked a good night to turn in an uninspired performance. When I asked many of her supporters the next day whether they had seen the St. Ambrose debate, they all said they had seen the first one a couple of weeks ago but missed the one Saturday night.

At the Farm Bureau, Ernst received a warm introduction from Branstad. The Senate race offers a stark contrast, Branstad said. On one hand, Ernst is “a farm girl who grew up working hard with a lot of responsibility at an early age, who then went on to serve both her county as county auditor, her state as a state senator, and more importantly her nation as a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, leading troops in Iraq.” On the other side, Braley is “a trial lawyer who thinks it would be terrible for Chuck Grassley to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee because he’s just a farmer from Iowa.” As the Farm Bureau audience booed, Branstad added, “Boy, I’d like to see a farmer from Iowa chair the Judiciary Committee.”

“There are 58 lawyers in the United States Senate,” the governor, who confessed to being a “recovering” lawyer himself, concluded. “We don’t need another one.”

Branstad introduced Romney. He noted that Romney had been governor of Massachusetts, and that he had rescued the Salt Lake City Olympics. But Branstad never mentioned that Romney had been the Republican candidate for president in 2012, and a GOP presidential candidate in Iowa in 2008 before that. It seemed odd, but maybe it was just because everybody knew that.

Romney clearly likes Ernst. “I can’t wait ’til she goes [to Washington] and makes them squeal,” Romney said, referring to Ernst’s famous “I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm” ad. It’s still an applause line.

Romney spent a fair amount of time slamming the man who defeated him in 2012. Barack Obama began his first term in the White House by traveling around the world apologizing for America, Romney said. Now, “It’s time for the president to apologize to America.”

Braley has the same policies as Obama, Romney continued. “I know that Iowa voted for President Obama twice, but Iowa is not going vote for Bill Braley and vote for [Obama] a third time, that’s for sure.” Romney messed up Braley’s first name, which is actually Bruce, but then again, nobody seems able to get Braley’s name right these days. First Lady Michelle Obama called him Bruce Bailey during a recent campaign visit, and, like Romney, former President Bill Clinton called Braley “Bill” during a campaign appearance in September.

Ernst reminded the crowd that Obama recently said that his policies are on the ballot this November. Braley is also running on those Obama policies, Ernst said: tax increases, regulations, Obamacare, federal spending, rising debt, cap-and-trade, plus naivete or outright neglect of the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It’s time to put an end to all that, Ernst said. “We are going to fire Harry Reid.”

“Iowa is excited about the opportunity to have not just one Republican United States senator, but two Republican United States senators,” Ernst told the crowd.

After the speeches, Romney hurried out of the room as a few reporters approached, probably wanting to ask Romney about his own 2016 presidential prospects. Romney ducked into a vast, dark, low-ceilinged room filled with office cubicles and was last seen leaving through a door on the other side, as an aide blocked anyone from following.

But Ernst stuck around to talk to a large group of voters who waited to see her. The vibes on the trail are good, but people associated with her campaign, as well as the GOP in Iowa and the national party, all see the race as exceedingly close. They believe her six-point lead from a few weeks ago was an outlier, or was maybe accurate for a very brief moment, and that now the race is pretty much tied. Ernst has a final debate with Braley on Thursday, and then it is pretty much a straight pedal-to-the-metal charge to see if she can convince Iowans to change that decades-old habit of keeping a Democrat in the Senate alongside Chuck Grassley.